Medal of Bravery

• Awarded on: April 21, 1987
• Invested on: June 26, 1987

On July 4, 1985, Mrs. Truscott, a clerk for the Canadian Ethnology Service of National Museums in Nepean, Ontario, was assisting a colleague to load books onto a heavy-duty steel shelving bay; it is estimated that each unit weighted 2,500 pounds when loaded. The colleague was loading the top shelf when the unit, improperly assembled, began to buckle and fall towards her. Mrs. Truscott, seeing the danger, stepped in and balanced the unit, keeping its full weight from falling on the other woman. She supported the unit for several minutes and her cries for help alerted other staff, who then helped clear the fallen books burying the other woman and aided Mrs. Truscott to extricate herself. Without her instinctive reaction, the colleague would have suffered severe, possibly life- threatening, injuries. In the event, she suffered some injury, but Mrs. Truscott herself was more seriously affected: injuries resulting from her act forced her to remain off work for some nine months.